Parashat Mishpatim 5786

by Rabbi Margie Cella

This week’s parashah contains 53 mitzvot covering a wide variety of subjects governing our relationships with God and our fellow human beings. 

I am going to concentrate on the laws of returning lost objects, as defined in Exodus 23:4-5. We are obligated to go out of our way to find the owner of a lost object and return his/her property, even if that person is our enemy.

Let me tell you a story:

After my husband and I, along with our two children, moved into our house in 1985, I discovered that the seller, whose parents had previously owned the home, had left behind a treasure trove of objects in the cabinet over the refrigerator: antique scales and meat grinders from Poland, letters written in Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish, a ceramic jug from pre-statehood Rishon l’Zion that said “Made in Palestine” on it, and more. I called the seller several times. She thanked me, but then forgot about the lost mementos and never came to pick them up. I could never bring myself to throw the objects out, however; I just left them where they were. 

Seventeen years later, I received a letter from California from a candidate for the High Holiday Cantor position at our synagogue. It turned out that he was this woman’s brother, the son of the previous homeowners. I told him about the items in my cabinet. 

While the synagogue didn’t hire him, we did reconnect. He came to New York, and came with his sister to reclaim their parents’ things. He was thrilled! He had been thinking about his mother’s meat grinder. Now he had it. 

And I got to keep that ceramic jug.

Oseh Shalom, Maker of Peace, may we all have the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of hashavet avedah.